A global human society, characterised by islands of wealth, surrounded by a sea of poverty, is unsustainable
Thabo MbekiRead
Together we have travelled a long road to be where we are today. This has been a road of struggle against colonial and apartheid oppression.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the collective journey of overcoming struggles and oppression.
Thabo Mbeki's quote speaks to the shared experiences of people who have fought against colonial and apartheid oppression. It highlights the resilience and unity of those who have traveled a difficult path together, emphasizing the significance of solidarity in the face of adversity and the achievements that emerge from enduring struggles as a community.
In practice
During a graduation speech, one might reflect on the struggles faced by previous generations.
A global human society, characterised by islands of wealth, surrounded by a sea of poverty, is unsustainable
Many of our own people here in this country do not ask about computers, telephones and television sets. They ask - when will we get a road to our village.
South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white.
Our experience over the last 20 years has shown that indeed people must themselves become their own liberators. You cannot wait for somebody else to come and rescue you.
As we mourn President Mandela’s passing we must ask ourselves the fundamental question - what shall we do to respond to the tasks of building a democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous South Africa, a people-centred society free of hunger, poverty, disease and inequality, as well as Africa’s renaissance, to whose attainment President Nelson Mandela dedicated his whole life?
Gloom and despondency have never defeated adversity. Trying times need courage and resilience. Our strength as a people is not tested during the best of times.
If you demand that everything that happens be something you are adequately prepared for, I wonder if you’ve chosen never to leap in ways that we need you to leap. Once we embrace this chasm, then for the things for which we can never be prepared, we are of course, always prepared.
With the knowledge of her aloneness came a rush of self-declaration: “I will not be nothing.”
Men had always told Kaladin that he fought like nobody else. He’d felt it on the first day he’d picked up a quarterstaff, though Tukks’s advice had helped him refine and channel what he could do. Kaladin had cared when he fought. He’d never fought empty or cold. He fought to keep his men alive
If I can sit down for freedom, you can stand up for children.
The power of resistance is to set an example: not necessarily to change the person with whom you disagree, but to empower the one who is watching and whose growth is not yet completed, whose path is not at all clear, whose direction is still very much up in the proverbial air.
I'm a human being I'm not a piece of property. I am not a consignment of goods.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.